William Claxton

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William Claxton (born October 12, 1927 in Pasadena , California , † October 11, 2008 in Los Angeles ) was an American photographer. With impressive photo portraits of jazz musicians, he made jazz more popular.

Life

As a psychology student at UCLA in Los Angeles, Claxton was already roaming jazz clubs with his camera. In 1952 he met Richard Bock at " The Haig " in Los Angeles while recording the Gerry Mulligan Quartet for his newly founded Pacific Jazz label and was hired by him as a photographer for the label's album covers. These recordings made him famous. Especially the portraits of the young Chet Baker later had a style-forming effect. Claxton also worked as a fashion photographer and was the preferred photographer of Steve McQueen in the 1960s , whom he met in 1962 while filming "Love with the proper Stranger". In 1959/1960 he traveled with Joachim-Ernst Berendt through the USA to learn about jazz musicians and street scenes a. a. photographed in New Orleans , Kansas City , New York , St. Louis , Chicago , Los Angeles and San Francisco , from which the photo book "Jazzlife" was born. At that time, the book had a print run of almost 2 million copies and is now a coveted collector's item.

His recordings have appeared in magazines such as Life , Paris Match and Vogue .

Claxton was married to ex-mannequin Peggy Moffitt from 1960 . Together with her he worked repeatedly for the designer Rudi Gernreich . Their son Christopher was born in 1973. The family lived in Beverly Hills .

In 1956 Shorty Rogers dedicated his composition “Clickin with Clax” to him and Al Cohn his “Sound Claxton”.

Claxton died of heart failure in a Los Angeles hospital just before his 81st birthday, leaving behind his wife Peggy Moffitt, son Christopher, and sister Colleen Lewis.

Works

Quote

"Most of the jazz photography before me showed sweaty musicians with shiny faces in dark, smoky little bars. That was jazz to most people. But being on the West Coast, I wanted to bring out the fact that musicians were living in a very health conscious environment. So I purposely put them on the beach or in the mountains or on the road in their convertibles. "

- William Claxton
(Translation: Much of the jazz photography before me showed sweaty musicians with shiny faces in dark, smoky little bars. That was jazz for most people. But on the West Coast, I wanted to emphasize the fact that musicians were in very healthy surroundings So I consciously put them on the beach or in the mountains or on the street in their convertibles. )

Movies

  • Jazz Seen , documentary, Germany, USA, 2001, director: Julian Benedikt , reviews:
  • Jazz for the eyes. The photos of William Claxton. TV feature, Germany, 2005, approx. 7 min., Production: ZDF , aspekte , broadcast: September 23, 2005, summary of the ZDF

Web links

Obituaries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jonathan S. Paul: A Claxton and Moffitt Original . In: New York Times , December 12, 2007.
  2. ↑ Veronica Schmidt: Photographer William Claxton dies . In: The Times , October 13, 2008.
  3. ↑ Kai Müller: The Invisible Third . In: Tagesspiegel , April 26, 2002.
  4. ↑ Change of look . In: Tagesspiegel , April 25, 2002.
personal data
SURNAME Claxton, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Pasadena , California
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 2008
Place of death los Angeles